Fields and Frames 1- Briefing/Experimenting with Film

During the Fields and Frames lecture, I decided to take notes on my iPad. The lesson was split up into two half's, which I will call part 1 and 2. 

Part 1

In summary of my notes, we were introduced to the unit and the way in which we could approach it. For example the unit is described as the 'Technical procedures and production practices. reflective, innovative engagement with practice professional working practices effective research and production planning awareness of audiences, contexts and networks' examples of the work we could create are ' Experimental art, Installation, Narrative, Documentary and Expanded cinema'  

Fields and Frames could also be approached by" 

'Using new and innovative technology  

Applying existing technology in an innovative way  

Critical historical and theoretical framework  

Moving image histories and digital futures 

Social themes (physical and biological sciences)'  

After being introduced to the unit, we looked at an example of an expanded cinema piece, which was TV Interruptions by David Hall. The piece included a running a bath, Running tap slowly filling up with water to the top, which to me gave off a feeling of unease through the visuals and sound change. Some suggested that the piece could be a message to stop wasting water/resources. 

 We then looked at expanded/experimental cinema and its meaning. We also looked at more examples of expanded cinema:

'Expanded/experimental cinema  

Content shaped by materials and technologies 

Experiment= challenge industrial/commercial  

Exposure/speed/focus/celluloid/surface/lens/printing process  

Fields and frames (frames per seconds) building blocks of what cinema is 

Smallest increments of screen technologies  

Expanded cinema  

Multiple technologies  

Screens  

Bodies 

Objects  

Live event  

What is expanded cinema- The projector  

Projector as event  

Manually pull film through  

Adapt/customise mechanism  

Interfere with shutter  

Light and dark and shadows- basic elements of film  

1. Dresden Dynamo  

A series of colours and shapes (blue and red) drawn onto film with music composed based on the movement of the visuals  

2. Night sounding  

Colouring/drawing over real life images  

Animatic drawing on film coinciding with real life image

Tony orsler art in progress  

Projections onto objects  

Filmed using parts of the body- the face (eyes, lips, teeth)  

Stripping away normal film  

Creating a new genre of film' 

Part 2

During the second part of the lesson we looked at Film, in particular 16mm film and took a hands on approach to developing our knowledge of using film. Earlier in the day we were shown what could be done using film, such as creating puppet shapes, series' of colours and shapes, drawings over real-life images and so on. We were provided with different rolls of film by Vicky and were set a task, which was to create a few seconds long film piece showing a manipulation of the film. We could do this in several ways. A few ways in which we could do this would be by scratching over the images printed on the film for example, which was Barbara Streissand's 'Funny Girl'. We could also dyeing/coloring the film to produce some sort of visual piece. 

 I had the idea of getting plain tape, which was also available to us,  and create a short animated piece. I decided to colour the film with a black marker to give it more edgy, rough look as I didn't want the screen to be fully black. I then drew faces onto the film, starting with one smiley face, then moving onto multiple faces, such as a sad face which then morphed together to form one expressionless face. This was very fun to do however as 24 frames equal one second, I had draw the same faces over 100 times for each frame just to get a few seconds of footage. using a Lightbox also really helped as it made it clearer to see where each face was. After this was done I helped Vicky set up the loop and we stuck all our work together to form one loop which was around 1-2 minutes long. The piece together were visually very interesting and I really enjoyed the lesson. It made me think more about the Fields and Frames unit and possible ideas that I could go about developing for the unit.